Another sewer ventilator-that of Mr. Lathamis sketched at fig. 29. It consists of a frame into which a spiral tray holding the charcoal is screwed. The overflow water from the dirt or sludge-box is conveyed back into the drain or sewer by means of a trough running underneath the tray. The whole is covered by a solid wooden block with the grain of the wood placed endwise, so as to ensure good wear and also to give an efficient foothold for horses or pedestrians. It is supplied by Messrs.

Having touched upon the very unwholesome condition of the water supplied by the Lambeth Company, I come to the water obtained from the wells of this neighbourhood. It may astonish many to learn that most of the wells of Norwood, and of the whole district stretching out towards Godalming, are more or less of the character known as mineral waters. If it be good for the health to always partake of a certain dose, even of the smallest, of sulphate of magnesia (Epsom salts), then you might consider your well-waters fit to drink, but for another and still greater drawback. I regret to assure you that a very careful examination of the public and private wells leads me to the conviction that very few of them are even safe, many are dangerous, and the public mineral spring on Biggin Hill is absolutely poisonous from organic contamination. Every indication of impurity known to chemists can be found in this water, and in very large proportions. Oxidisable organic matter, ammonia (four parts per million), chlorides, nitrates, nitrites, living organisms, and decaying vegetable matter, the whole impregnated with half an ounce of Epsom salts, and about as much more of Glauber salts, with other mineral constituents, per gallon. These are the components of this particular spring which ought to be imme

*Since closed, in consequence of the lecture, by the Croydon Board of Health.

diately closed until it can be rendered a pure medicine only, for it never can be fit to drink freely; and with such contamination, but in a lesser degree, most of your clear, bright, cool, and otherwise palatable spring-waters are polluted.

When, in consequence of an alteration of the soil, no sulphates or carbonates of lime or magnesia are present, I almost invariably find the well-water rendered injurious from lead being dissolved by it. Sometimes this solvent action becomes highly poisonous, and I have here a sample containing more than one and a-half grains of lead to the gallon. Observe that on the application of sulphuretted hydrogen gas it becomes almost black, yet this is a sample of well-water from no great distance. It is certainly poisonous, and it is not surprising to find that the whole family drinking it suffered severely from its effects.

If you take refuge in the ordinary soda-water, lemonade, ginger ale, or the mineral waters of commerce, you will find by a careful analysis that most of them contain impurities, some of the very worst description. I have here a sample of sodawater taken from a syphon, manufactured by one of the largest west-end firms; it is at least highly dangerous, for it contains more than a grain of lead dissolved in every gallon. Another of ginger-beer is even worse, while lemonade is hardly ever free from the poisonous influence of lead. I am at present engaged upon an important series of investigations bearing upon this very point for one of the leading scientific journals, and the wider my experience ranges, the more I recognise the necessity of devoting every attention to obtaining pure water for table use.

I would advocate the use of the natural seltzer water if it did not contain so much excess of salt, but this deprives it of the much-needed property of quenching thirst. A really reliable effervescent water for habitual use is only at present attainable from some very few sources in Europe: one or two springs in France, hardly known to our English travellers, afford good waters; whether or not they can be economically bottled and transported to this country I do not know. At present I am aware of only one water of this kind which fulfils the necessary conditions of purity and effervescence, without excess of saline ingredients, and that is from the Apollinaris spring.

RIVER POLLUTION.

AN influential meeting of riparian proprietors was recently held at Edmonton for the purpose of forming an association with the objects of stopping the pollution which has already destroyed so many rivers, and which threatens to convert most of the remaining streams of the country into sewers; to co-operate with the inhabitants of any district which suffers from pollution which affects the health of the district, the supply of water for man and beast, and the fish; to meet in friendly consultation the authors of

pollution with a view to avoid legal measures; finally pollution, by discussions at general meetings of the associato correct mistaken popular views on the subject of river tion, and reports printed and circulated. The association will not maintain that, for natural drainage, rivers may not be subservient. But the plainest principles of law, and the general interests of the community, alike forbid that rivers should, by artificial means and for the convenience of individuals, be changed in character and converted into streams of pestilence. The association have set themselves a worthy task, and if they can carry it out efficiently they will do the state some service.'

THE

SANITARY RECORD.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1875.

TO SECRETARIES OF SANITARY ASSOCIATIONS AND KINDRED SOCIETIES.

The Editor will be glad to receive, with a view to publication, announcements of meetings, reports of proceedings, and abstracts or originals | of papers read before the members of any sanitary or kindred association.

DWELLINGS OF THE WORKING-
CLASSES' BILL.

MR. CROSS's bill has been received with general

satisfaction in sanitary circles, and is not likely, we

hope, to meet with much opposition anywhere. It is, however, generally felt that some modifications will be necessary to make it work well. Is it desirable that the local authority should, to any large extent, become proprietors? the interests of landlords and of supervisors cannot, we think, properly be combined in one and the same authority. On the other hand, if the properties acquired under this bill (if it become law) pass away by sale from the local authority, should not precautions be taken that it is not ultimately, and by new hands, diverted from its original intention? Provision may, we think, easily be made satisfactorily to meet both questions.

Again, compensation is unquestionably a necessary element in such a bill. The part which the Lords took in striking it out from Mr. M'Cullagh Torrens' bill has done much to render it inoperative as a working measure. Mr. Cross's bill does away with the provision for compulsory purchase; but might it not advantageously go further in this direction, so as to prevent it from being made a medium of procuring large prices for wretched property, at present let out in a great number of single rooms at exorbitant rates? Some mode of calculating the profit rental might be settled with reference to the actual rent of the houses under the lease by which

the holder holds them.

The provision for purchasing 'unhealthy areas' is notoriously insufficient, unless power is also given to purchase such adjacent or included property as is absolutely required for the practical purpose of making the proposed site available for healthy dwellings-as in opening up blind courts.

As to the means of working the Act, it will, we believe, be generally felt that, according to experience, the number cited of twenty householders who are to put the medical officer in motion is too large; six is more than enough. Then comes the question of the wisdom of making the whole measure turn upon the vestry medical officer's report as its sole pivot.

We doubt, with Mr. Shuttleworth and others who spoke, whether this is wise, either in respect to him or to the ratepayers. A medical officer in London is a gentleman appointed annually, more or less exposed to the whims, humours, and tempers of his masters. In many vestries there are to be found owners of very bad property who come on to the vestry partly to protect that property. He ought to have some one to whom he can appeal; and the surrounding inhabitants ought also to be able to bring into the field some authority in reserve, if the medical officer be intimidated or gagged. The very knowledge that such a reserve power existed would, in most cases, suffice to secure him and them, and it would probably rarely be wanted for use; but if not provided, it would be certain to be very much wanted. In fact, the Act might break down for want of it. The Board of Works will, we think, with these higher duties, and not a man on job clearly require a permanent medical officer, charged work, as the bill provides.

These are a few suggestions which we believe are already present in the minds of those who are most interested in the successful working of this great measure. We speak of it by anticipation as a great measure, for if it be brought into thoroughly complete working order, it is a measure from which very great results indeed may be fairly expected. But as Mr. M'Cullagh Torren's Act shows, if it be hacked about in Parliament and dealt with in any other than with a single view to increase its efficiency, it may only add another to the succession of failures of the legislation on this subject.

THE DRY-EARTH SYSTEM. DR. PARKES, F.R S., the eminent professor of hygiene at Netley, discusses in brief but weighty words the result of recent inquiries as to the value of the dry-earth system. He points attention especially to the results of Dr. Voelcker's examination of

the earth removed. Dr. Voelcker bears full testi

mony to the deodorising efficiency of the dry-earth system, and to its great hygienic usefulness in small constituencies, but he entirely confirms Gilbert's analyses that the earth-poudrette is of little agricultural value. This has been expected, but it is not the less a conclusion much to be regretted, as it destroys the chance of this system being profitable and Dr. perhaps even of its paying its own expenses. Voelcker gives several analyses which all tell the same tale.

Although in such analyses it is impossible to get earth always of the same composition, and equally well mixed with the fæces, these results show how comparatively little ammonia the mixture gained even after three times use; either the ammonia volatilises by the heat used in drying the soil, or, what is more probable, it really receives little from the solid

death-rates in London and Berlin during the past summer and winter, as published in the Weekly Returns of the Registrar-General. The figures are interesting in themselves, and afford additional evidence of the fatal effect of the cold upon the population of London. The unsanitary condition of Berlin has been notorious, and its effect upon infant mortality has been more than once noticed in these columns. It appears that during the seven weeks ending August 8 last the annual death-rate in Berlin averaged 494 per 1,000, whereas in London, during the same period, the rate of mortality did not exceed 22.6 per 1,000. During the two weeks ending July 25 no less than 68 per cent. of the deaths at all ages were of infants under one year of age, a large proportion of whom died from diarrhoea. Thus, during the hottest part of last summer, the death-rate in Berlin was more than double that which prevailed in London. A comparison of the rates in these two cities during the cold weather of December, however, gives a different result. The average annual death-rate in London during the last five weeks of the year was 31.5 per 1,000, while in Berlin the rate during the five weeks ending December 26 did not exceed 28.1 per 1,000. There can be little doubt that the sanitary condition of London is at the present time superior to that of Berlin, and yet the effects of the recent cold weather were far more fatal in London than in Berlin. It is very probable that in Berlin the population are better provided against severe cold which is there annually expected; whereas in London really low temperatures are of comparatively rare occurrence, and consequently find the population almost entirely unprotected. It would be interesting and useful to follow out the comparison in greater detail as regards the ages and causes of death in London and Berlin during the late frost; but the necessary figures are not available, so far as Berlin is concerned, in the RegistrarGeneral's Weekly Returns.

PROTECTION OF BUILDINGS, ETC., FROM FIRE.

MR. COLEMAN'S promised paper upon this very important subject was read before the Society of Arts on the 3rd inst., and proved very interesting, treated as it was from an American point of view. The question of protection from fire is with us quite as pressing a one as it can be in the United States, and the burning of the Alexandra Palace, the Pantechnicon, and the Liverpool landing-stage are as fresh in our memories as can possibly be either the great fires of Boston or Chicago in the minds of our transatlantic cousins. We possess an advantage over them in the greater substantiality of our buildings, and our conflagrations do not cover such a vast space of ground, but we are, fairly speaking, behind them in the possession of machinery for the speedy extinction of fires. We look to our firemen and our fire-engines to shield us from their ravages; the Americans prefer to trust more to the working of the pipes which are laid all over their improved buildings for the distribution of the water. They have also of late inaugurated the use of steam as a firedestroyer, and have discovered that with its aid every portion of a building can be immediately subjected to this novel extinguisher. In Lowell cach manufactory is fitted up with a complete set of pumps and sprinklers for its own use, and, if necessary, all the mills can be made to furnish steam for use at any one given point. The result of this thorough combination has been that mills, representing a capital of over two and a half millions sterling, have met with an entire loss of only sixty thousand pounds during a

mastery over the doomed establishment. For, likely as not, neither hand-buckets or carbonic acid apparatus or anything else has been at hand for use pending the arrival of the fire-engines. And when these have arrived golden minutes have been lost in the raising of the ladders, and the dragging up of the ponderous leather hose. It may be that the water-supply is not immediately available. The firemen have also to break through the windows and to grope their way with uncertainty through the smoke to the site of the fire, half-suffocated with the fumes; and one result is, that the fire is thus supplied with fresh air, and it begins to burn with fresher fierceness. When the water is laid on tons of it are distributed considerably at random, nor is the damage done by this new element the least disastrous in the long run.

The plan proposed by Mr. Coleman for the watersupply is to affix to all permanent buildings iron standpipes-one going to the roof and others to the various storeys. Perforated branch-pipes are also to be laid at divers intervals over the roof and under the eaves. Similar branch-pipes are also to be fixed upon the ceiling of each storey. Should a fire break out in a building, the turning of a few cocks would subject every square foot of the building to jets of water. And should the danger be outside and the structure be in fear from a contiguous fire, the roof and eaves pipes would distribute sheets of water around the walls and over the slates. When there was a sufficient head of water these distributing pipes would be connected direct with the mains in the street, otherwise pumps must be used. In one mill in America a fire broke out on the fifth storey, and although it had attained sufficient force to create a panic in the whole building, the simple turning of a cock in the cellar extinguished it in less than ten minutes. In another mill the turning on of the water for four minutes only proved the salvation of a building the entire destruction of which was looked upon as certain. This arrangement is evidently an advance, not only upon our fire brigade arrangement, but upon the system of trusting to mere hydrants and hose, such as may be seen to perfection in the libraries of the British Museum, for Mr. Coleman instanced a case where these were all provided, and still the result proved disastrous in the highest degree. It would be unques tionably the right thing to give the Coleman system a fair trial here in London. Every week a block of warehouses are in course of erection somewhere or another, and the cost of fitting up any, even huge, establishment need not exceed the sum expended upon gas-fittings. If our projected Opera House on the Thames Embankment be not fitted up with this or a still better system of sprinklingpipes,' it will simply be a disgrace to the entire community.

Medical Officers' Reports.

COVENTRY.

DR. FENTON's first report for the Michaelmas quarter of 1874 contains much interesting matter. The unusually high death-rate of 27 per 1,000 appears to have been due to the prevalence of scarlet fever of a malignant and fatal type, the cause of 30 per cent. of all the deaths.

As usual, the extension of the malady is ascribed to the want of isolation, not, however, from any de

involved.

When a fire happens with us, some time is necessarily lost in summoning the fire brigade, and by the time that the engines have arrived the fire has obtained considerable

determined resistance by mothers to the removal of their sick children. Active measures appear to have been taken to check the epidemic, but with little effect, owing to the ignorance and prejudices of the poor, who show great indifference to disinfection, and took no pains to isolate their own stricken homes from the incursions of neighbours' children. Coventry